So I’m in Kerala, and here are a few things what I’ve learned and that:

1. Driving around this place, though it feels so much like being a charcter in Grand Theft Auto, is not Grand Theft Auto. So that woman who approached my car when stalled in traffic, was not some ho wanting a ride, but just someone wanting to sell spices and shit. So I shouldn’t have ducked, thinking her pimps bullet would go through the dash.
2. When you’re having tea with the Bishop of Trichu, and he asks if I know George Pell and how is he doing, you do not answer, “Oh that guy, no never see him, he’s up in Rome. And that’s where we kinda like him, ’cause he comes back down under, says a whole lot of stupid things that makes all the catholics angry, and leaves again.” just in case he might tell you that he is one of George’s best friends, and shows pictures of the two of them in seminary in Italy together when they were both young.
3. If you see two men walking down the road together holding hands, chances are they are not gay, that they just love each other. But if you’re in a clothing shop and the attendant asks where you’re from, and you say Australia, and he says “Ooh I love Australia, especially Australian boys”, chances are he is gay. And if he hands you a pair of trousers and says that he’d like you to try them on in front of him, and then pinches you on the arse, you can pretty much assume he’s gay.
4. Don’t bother learning Malayalm. The average word has about 26 syllables and the language itself sounds like a lawnmower starting up. I asked someone how to say “thank you” in Malyalam, and then forgot it in about five seconds, which meant I basically listed known Japanese cars to a waiter when she served me tea.
5. If you give a lecture in a seminary to about a hundred theology students, no matter how much you try to tell them you’re just a PhD student, they call you professor anyway, and apparently if you give a good lecture, they call you Eminent Professor. Just ride with it.
6. Elephants are cute and that, right? But don’t tease them, because when they spit on you your skin and clothes change colour.
7. If you’re aged fifty-plus and are on a guided tour to get that “Indian experience” that your lives seem to lack so much in France or Germany, get the fuck back home you selfish fucks! I saw you merge on to some poor beggar in Fort Kochi today, all six of you. Sure, he was worth your flashes and photographs, and his image would be an all-so-important addition to your slideshows back home, but still he wasn’t worth your loose change, your ears or even a thank you. All he wanted was some attention, and all you gave him was a mass of camera lights and ridicule.